DEEJAYKEG
An interesting piece of creative writing comparing the "good" old days with modern times, certainly. I guess we shall have to overlook the burning of fossil fuels in our homes to heat them rather than the energy-efficient combi boilers of today. Likewise, we'll ignore the tons of lead spewed into the atmosphere by 1950s and 1960s vintage motor transport before the advent of unleaded petrol (gasoline). I always thanked the previous generation for their biggest "gift" to the world - radioactivity - as that is a gift that doesn't go away during ones lifetime. I don't know about recycling efforts across the Atlantic but nearly everything we use in the house, these days, gets recycled and we have a collection of bins and boxes outside to hold the material until it's collected. Even food waste gets composted now.
Recycling in the US is a joke at the best of times, regardless of what people think.
I saw a statistic a few years ago that the entire country of Germany (West Germany at the time) makes less non-recyclable waste as one medium sized US city. There are 81 million people in Germany, and a medium sized city in the US is less than 1 million people